World Idealogies With Reference to Cows

Feudalism: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

Pure Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.

Bureaucratic Socialism: Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs the regulations say you should need.

Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

Pure Communism: You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need." Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

Russian Communism: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market. Perestroika:

You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market.

Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Dictatorship: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

Pure Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

Bureaucracy: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

Capitalism: You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.

Pure Anarchy: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

Anarcho-Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

God told Noah: "I'm going to make it rain until the whole earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. I want to save a few good people and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am commanding you to build an ark." And in a flash of lightning He delivered the specifications for the Ark. "Okay" said Noah, trembling with fear and fumbling with the blueprints.

In time the sky got dark and rain began to fall lightly.

God looked down and saw Noah sitting in his front yard, weeping, and there was no ark!

"Noah", shouted God, "where is the ark?"

"Lord, please forgive me!", begged Noah, "I did my best but there were problems. First I had to get a building permit for the Ark Construction Project and your plans didn't meet code. So I had to hire an engineer to re-draw the plans. Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system and the size and location of the handicapped restroom.

"Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the City Planning Commission. Do you know how long that took?

"Next, I had a problem getting enough wood for the Ark because there was a ban on cutting the trees, something about de-forestation. A lot of the trees had long nails and spikes driven into them and I am afraid that there are alot of holes in the planks we did cut. In addition another group joined in with the Tree Huggers, someone trying to save the Spotted Owl.

I had to convince the Fish and Wildlife Agency that I needed the wood to save the owls. They wouldn't let me catch my owls, so no owls.

"The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. I still don't have any owls.

"I started gathering up the animals and got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me taking the animals according to your instructions. You said that I could take seven of the clean ones and that made an odd one, without a mate - big long meetings over that one, Lord. Have you seen the attorney fees?

"When I got that suit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the Ark without filing an Environmental Impact Statement on your proposed flood. They didn't take kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of a Supreme Being. More attorney fees and I still don't have any owls.

"Then the Army Corp of Engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plane. I sent them a globe.

"Right now I am still trying to resolve a complaint from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over how many Croations I'm supposed to hire.

"The IRS has seized all my assets, claiming that I'm trying to avoid paying taxes by leaving the country.

"I just received a notice from the state about owing them some kind of Use Tax

"Lord, I really don't think I can build this Ark, at least not get started for another five years", wailed Noah.

The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine and a beautiful rainbow arched across the sky.

Noah looked up and smiled, "You mean you're not going to destroy the earth?"

"No", said the Lord sadly, "The government already has."

Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC (now officially the European Union, or EU), the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficiency in communications between Government departments.

European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessary difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased programme of changes to iron out these anomalies. The programme would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top level by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k' sinse both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters kould be made with one less letter.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it was anounsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty persent shorter in print.

In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therefor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend.

By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptive to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsh is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from words kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli hav a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls, difikultis and evrivun vud fin it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of the uvermnt vud finali hav kum tru.

2. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my dungeon.

3. Shooting is not too good for my enemies.

4. The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box.

5. I will not gloat over my enemies' predicatment before killing them.

6. When the rebel leader challenges me to fight one-on-one and asks, ``Or are you afraid without your armies to back you up?'' My reply will be, ``No, just sensible.''

7. When I've captured my adversary and he says, ``Look, before you kill me, will you at least tell me what this is all about?'' I'll say, ``No.'' and shoot him.

8. I will not include a self-destruct mechanism unless absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, it will not be a large red button labelled ``Danger: Do Not Push''.

9. I will be secure in my superiority. Therefore, I will feel no need to prove it by leaving clues in the form of riddles or leaving my weaker enemies alive to show they pose no threat.

10. I will not waste time making my enemy's death look like an accident -- I'm not accountable to anyone and my other enemies wouldn't believe it.

11. I will make it clear that I do know the meaning of the word ``mercy''; I simply choose not show them any.

12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.

13. All slain enemies will be cremated, not left for dead at the bottom of the cliff. The announcement of their deaths, as well as any accompanying celebration, will be deferred until after the aforementioned disposal.

14. My undercover agents will not have tattoos identifying them as members of my organization, nor will they be required to wear military boots or adhere to any other dress codes.

15. The hero is not entitled to a last kiss, a last cigarette, or any other form of last request.

16. I will never employ any device with a digital countdown. If I find that such a device is absolutely unavoidable, I will set it to activate when the counter reaches 117 and the hero is just putting his plan into operation.

17. I will design all doomsday machines myself. If I must hire a mad scientist to assist me, I will make sure that he is sufficiently twisted to never regret his evil ways and seek to undo the damage he's caused.

18. I will never utter the sentence ``But before I kill you, there's just one thing I want to know.''

19. I will not have a son. Although his laughably under-planned attempt to usurp power would easily fail, it would provide a fatal distraction at a crucial point in time.

20. I will not have a daughter. She would be as beautiful as she was evil, but one look at the hero's rugged countenance and she'd betray her own father.

21. Despite its proven stress-relieving effect, I will not indulge in maniacal laughter. When so occupied, it's too easy to miss unexpected developments that a more attentive individual could adjust to accordingly.

22. I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my legions of terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes.

23. When I employ people as advisors, I will occasionally listen to their advice.

ops to have a more positive mind-set.